The GOP’s Absurd Attack on Susan Rice Over Benghazi

Nov 20, 2012 4:45 AM EST

Furious that Obama paid no electoral price for Benghazi, Republicans are threatening to filibuster his presumed secretary of state nominee, Susan Rice, as a scapegoat. Michael Tomasky on the real scandal.

There would seem to be little connection between Nate Silver and Susan Rice, but hear me out. The New York Times electoral savant was said to be “controversial.” No one adduced a lick of factual evidence for why he should have been thought to be so, but people on the right just didn’t like his electoral predictions, so they tried to make him controversial. With respect to Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, much the same is true. In reality land, she’s done nothing that ought to be considered all that controversial. But again, conservatives don’t like the outcome—Democrats having the upper hand on foreign policy and national security—so they’re trying to make her controversial

Let’s start at the beginning. What did Rice have to do with the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack? In all likelihood, absolutely nothing. Consular security is a State Department matter. The U.N. ambassador has no authority over such questions. If the matter of security in Benghazi was ever the subject of a principals-level meeting of the top national-security team, then maybe she was privy to a discussion. But it’s certainly not her decision. The only outpost whose security she’s responsible for is the one in Turtle Bay.

For a while one heard conservatives ask, well, if this wasn’t her gig, then why did the administration send her out there on those Sunday shows Sept. 16? It didn’t prove much, this question, one way or the other, but it was a fair enough point. This past Sunday, The New York Times’ reporting answered it. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should have been the one to do those shows, and she was asked first, but she said no.

So Rice was just being a good team player. She said what she was told by intelligence agencies to say. If you look over her remarks, they were invariably carefully couched, to each host: “the best information we have at present,” she said to NBC’s David Gregory. So it was. As The Wall Street Journal and others have reported, the intel assessments were changing the day she was on those shows, but she didn’t yet know that.

1. Curious that they aren't focusing on the more legitimate issue of security of consulates

All they seem to be focused on the words used to describe in the immediate aftermath of the attack and whether or not the Obama Administration knew it was a terrorist attack but sent Rice out to say something different- though it still begs the question: What in heaven's name would the Obama Administration have to gain by sending Rice out to "mislead" people about what happened? It was initially unclear what happened- as is the case when things like this occur- and she reported what she knew at the time. Where's the beef? How long is this farce going to be allowed to continue. I'm all for investigating what happened and what, if anything, more we might want to do to better protect our diplomatic posts in hostile countries but the idea that the Obama Administration via Ms. Rice is orchestrating some kind of Machiavellian cover-up is absurd at best IMHO.

2. Fox has been pounding away at this since mid September

the break room in my office sometimes has Fox on, and the crawl on the bottom of the screen was always something about how Susan Rice should resign. (or, as Fox normally says, "Should Susan Rice resign in shame?")

If they bring up embassy security, the talk will get back to why did Republicans slash the budget for protecting embassies, consulates and their personnel?